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PHOTOS: Obama's Israel trip

Obama on peace: 'You must create the change'

‘The Scrum’ podcast: Obama’s new BFF in Israel

The president said repeatedly before and during his trip here that he believes in the peace process — but he believes as well that that the Israelis and Palestinians will need to show some flexibility before he gets much more involved. As strong as his pro-peace remarks have been during the trip, they haven’t changed the president’s reluctance to get stung by another failed effort at peace like he did during his first term.

The secretary of state sees making a deal happen as a critical part of his new job — and while Obama has plenty of other foreign and domestic issues that could cement his legacy, brokering Mideast peace is the rare kind of diplomatic achievement that could put Kerry in the history books.

So far, Obama seems willing to allow Kerry to take a whirl, so long as he keeps a low profile and doesn’t generate a political backlash. But the president still hasn’t done much to answer the key question of how much of his own political capital he’ll put into the effort.

“There are greener pastures that beckon [Obama] in Asia, and you can see, from a variety of other actions that he’s taken or hasn’t taken in the Middle East, that he would rather turn away from this region,” former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said last week. “John Kerry has exactly the opposite instinct. He wants to engage in the Middle East — and, in particular, he wants to take on the Israeli-Palestinian challenge, and it’s a high priority for him.”

Obama in his speech to the Israeli people on Thursday spoke bluntly of tough political choices needed for peace. He said Israel should move forward on restarting talks, even though it wouldn’t be easy. He argued that the rise of more democratic governments in the Arab Spring, the escalating sophistication and ability of weapons and the demographics that pose a threat to Israel as a majority-Jewish state, all make the need for peace critical.